


Everybody Here Is Watching You (Cause You Feel Like Home)

by lady_ragnell



Series: Prompt Reposts [31]
Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: F/F, Golden Age Hollywood, Not Season 2 Compliant, Past Character Death, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-06
Updated: 2016-10-06
Packaged: 2018-08-19 22:32:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8226955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_ragnell/pseuds/lady_ragnell
Summary: Angie gets a role in the Captain America picture.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written before s2, and thus not canon compliant. Just a belated repost!
> 
> "Mr. Douglas" is indeed Kirk Douglas, his early career was juuust close enough to this timeline that I thought his breakout role could have been as Captain America.
> 
> Title from Adele's "When We Were Young."

“Hey, English, can I talk to you a minute?”

Peggy frowns, looking up from the kettle, which she's been staring at, waiting for it to boil before finding Angie somewhere in the penthouse and asking how her day has been. It's been the routine ever since they moved in, and she's grown fond of it. Sometimes Angie will find her first, but it's usually if she's steaming mad or bubbling over with happiness. Peggy doesn't know what to do to make of worry and hesitance. “Of course, Angie. Is something the matter?”

“Kind of. Maybe. I don't know.” The kettle whistles, and Peggy turns automatically to deal with it, expecting Angie to keep talking, but she doesn't fill the silence. She's a slightly quieter roommate than Peggy had expected, but when she has something on mind, she says it. This is nerve-wracking.

Peggy gives her the time, sets her tea to steeping, and turns back to her. Angie is biting her lip. “You should just tell me. If you're moving out, or if I've done something, I would much rather—”

“Jesus, I hadn't even thought. I don't know, I might be moving out, I hadn't thought that far.” Now Peggy is alarmed—Angie hasn't mentioned ill relatives, and she hasn't mentioned any men aside from producers who don't seem to like her and customers who seem to like her a little too much so she's unlikely to be leaving to get married. Perhaps she's been threatened, something to do with Peggy's work. Perhaps Howard has become more serious about one of his offers to take her out on the town. “I got offered a movie role today.”

Peggy smiles and offers Angie her arms for a hug, something she's growing more used to lately. “Angie, darling, that's wonderful. What do you look so upset about?” She thinks about where movies are filmed, all the way across the continent, but the SSR has its satellite offices. Peggy could find an excuse to visit, to check on Angie. “Are you worried about leaving me? It isn't as though Howard charges me rent. What sort of role?”

“Starring role—well, biggest role for a woman in the picture, anyway.” Angie hugs her, but it's brief, only a moment before she pulls away. “He probably coulda had anyone, the producer, but he said he didn't want anyone famous because she's kind of a mystery, and that I've got a face for the pictures anyway.”

“That's wonderful, Angie, but you seem upset.” Peggy's tea isn't going to be strong enough, but she stops steeping it anyway, and puts in a bit of honey before shepherding Angie back out of the kitchen to the first soft surface they happen across, a sofa Howard has stowed in a nook near a window looking out on New York. “Tell me what the trouble with the role is, aside from perhaps moving to Los Angeles. Do you think the producer is going to expect something of you?”

Angie looks down at her lap. “It's the Captain America picture. And I know you don't talk about it, Peg, but you and Stark talk, and there's a picture in your room, and you hate the radio show, so I know—if you don't want me to take the role, I won't do it.”

Peggy can't breathe for a moment, feeling as though she's been punched in the diaphragm, lost somewhere in the usual maelstrom of memories and anger and grief, mixed in with the shaky amazement that Angie would give up her chance at fame in a moment if Peggy said she didn't want her to do it. She strives for a light tone when she can manage words. “Let me guess: Betty Carver, field nurse, who gets kidnapped at least twice?”

“I don't have the script, English.” There's a glint of humor there, anyway. “But the producer, he's a vet, he says he never met a nurse who acts like the nurse on that show did. And I wouldn't play her useless, anyway. I just don't want you to have to watch my first picture and think about your ex, if you don't want to.”

“I think ...” Peggy swallows. “I think there's no one I would rather see play me. There's so much talk about him, I always thought there would be films, and there needs to be someone there to remind them that wars aren't just men's business.”

“Peg—”

“Angie. I don't want to take your career from you. It may be difficult, at times, but I'm not lying. There is no one I would rather have involved in this.”

Angie takes the teacup out of her hands and places it on the floor before she throws her arms around Peggy. Peggy holds on, and says some sort of nonsense about visiting her in LA when she's a star, and if both of them have to wipe away a few tears afterward, neither of them mentions it.

*

“Well, what do you think of Los Angeles?”

“I think no one's pinched my rear yet and my co-star is gorgeous,” Angie shouts through the phone. There's some sort of commotion on her end. “Also that the digs are terrible, hasn't Stark got a penthouse out here too? You need to come so he'll let me stay there.”

“I've been thinking about it,” Peggy admits. There's a task force moving to LA to research some scientists that have gone missing, and Howard is sticking his nose in, which usually means she's asked to join in to wrangle him. She wouldn't be in charge, but she's willing to bide her time, and she would be near Angie for at least a while. “I'm glad to hear you aren't being harassed, though. And Mr. Douglas is making a credible Captain America so far?”

“Well, so far all we've done is read a few scenes, but seems like it to me, anyway. All noble and strong. He's probably not going to be your Captain America, but I kind of think you'll like it better that way.”

Angie is right, of course, but Peggy doesn't really want to discuss that when they're several thousand miles away from each other. “You'll have to tell me about it all when you know a little more. Now tell me honestly, Angie, I have to prepare myself—how many times do you get kidnapped?”

Even across the tinny phone line, Angie's laugh is bright and warm and everything Peggy needs to hear after a long day. “Just the once, English, but let me tell you, it's a doozy,” she says, and launches into the story of the script.

It's nothing like the reality, but Angie is right. Peggy likes it better that way.

*

Peggy sits on her own in the theater for a few moments when the screen goes dark—Howard is off somewhere being smug about the attractiveness of the man who played him for the few minutes he was in the film, and he's nominally her date, so she doesn't have to be anywhere. She can sit, stare at her hands in her lap, and blink back the tears that have been threatening since Angie looked up at her co-star with shining eyes and a catch in her voice and said “I'll be watching for your plane. I'll be ready to take care of you. Just come back.”

It's very little to do with Steve, it turns out. The reminder saddens her, but Mr. Douglas isn't much like the Steve she knew, too pristine, too willing to take the credit given him.

It's everything to do with Angie, how silly her lines were but how she never made herself a joke, how she watched Mr. Douglas with stars in her eyes and snapped orders at the other nurses when Captain America was injured and kicked two of the soldiers trying to take her hostage and never let herself be something to be rescued. Some of that is down to the script and the director and a host of other men, Peggy knows, but somehow it seems to her that it's all Angie, every piece of it.

“Hey, English,” says Angie softly, sliding into the seat next to her. She's wearing something cream and gold and terribly lovely, and she smells like some kind of expensive perfume when she leans against Peggy. They haven't had the chance to say hello, since Peggy only landed in California this morning. “Made you cry, huh? So I was either very good or really bad.”

“You were wonderful, of course, Angie,” says Peggy, and twists so she can kiss her on the cheek. “I've missed you dreadfully, but this was worth it. It's a beautiful film.”

“You think I did you justice?” Angie shrugs. “I know it wasn't … that Betty's not you, not really. But I figure that the movie might be better to think about than the radio play.”

Betty Carver isn't much like Peggy, but Peggy spent the film wishing they had had a nurse, that Angie had done that instead of working in munitions during the war and been attached to their unit. Somehow, she hadn't thought of it before, but Steve would have adored her, and the rest of the men would have as well. “I think that for all Captain America is a symbol for all our soldiers, even if he's not much like Steve at all, you can be a symbol for our nurses. You didn't have to be like me. You just had to be exactly as you were.”

Angie glances around and smiles at someone, the same smile she gave difficult customers at the automat, and then she searches for Peggy's hand and clasps it tight. “Maybe someday they'll be able to do your story right, but in the meantime, I'm glad I got to do my best with it.”

“I'm glad you took the role,” Peggy says, squeezing back. “That it was someone who knows me. Thank you.”

“You're welcome, English.” Angie bites her lip. “I'm glad it was okay.”

“You were wonderful,” Peggy assures her, and takes a deep breath so she can be brisk, pack all of this away to talk about later, after the afterparty that Howard is throwing for the cast. “Now, shall we go talk to your adoring public?”

Angie instantly lights up. “Damn right we shall, Peg. I've already got a director asking for me for the next Kelly picture, since he heard I could sing.”

“Tell me all about it,” says Peggy, and pulls her to her feet.


End file.
